Bear Grease and Toad's Liver
by Dukes126plus
Summary: “Hold still now, I don’t want to hurt you any worse.” Funny how that instinct hadn’t been there in the bright light of the afternoon when Jesse was plastering Luke’s face with bear grease and toad’s liver. From Find Loretta Lynn.


Probably the entire motivation for this one, from Find Loretta Lynn, was me liking the faces Luke makes in discussing bear grease and toad's liver. (And how cute Bo sounded when he went looking for him after Luke had been knocked out by the big guy.)

* * *

It was to save Bo from Daisy that Luke wound up with bear grease and toad's liver on his face. The boy had wrecked her car on a fool move that he could have avoided. Luke had the time to warn him, which meant Bo had twice the time he needed to steer around that hay pile. Man was just lazy, and Luke was paying the price.

Bo made a big deal over Luke's eye, once they hit the farmyard. Hadn't given it more than a cursory look before then, had used Luke's admission that he couldn't see well to complain about his own risk of injury. The truth was, Bo didn't give a damn about Luke's eyes, just his own ass.

Which Jesse was protecting anyway. Daisy would have found the nearest heavy metal implement to beat the tar out of Bo for his insolent ways without their uncle calming her down. And sticking toad's liver and bear grease onto Luke's face.

Luke saved them both by insisting they had work to do. Bo wasn't gracious enough to thank him for his sacrifices, but at least he took the hint and got into the General. Within minutes they were far from the dangers that lurked in their own home.

True to his insistence on the matter, Luke's eye felt a whole lot better; enough so that he became the lookout on their mission, while Bo did the driving. Interesting how they each went to their usual locations – Bo behind the wheel and Luke on the hood – even if Luke had complained of being impaired and Bo had, not much more than an hour ago, crashed a car. Which only went to show that even on bad days, the Duke boys should stick to their strengths.

Which for Luke meant figuring out where Loretta Lynn had been kidnapped off to, the best way to rescue her, and how to stay out of jail along the way. For Bo it meant smiling pretty and flirting with Loretta's manager. And driving carefully with Luke on the hood of the car, three times in one day. (He flipped the General, too, but fortunately for them both, Luke was inside the car at the time.)

It ended oddly, with Luke using a banana to stop the RV while Bo hung the short guy on a coat hook. Why that part was funny Luke never got a chance to figure out; he was too busy tangling with the big-as-a-mack-truck guy. Which worked out fine, too. When the day was over, the worst injuries were to Luke's eye and Daisy's car. Both of which were on the mend by sundown.

Which was why it was so strange when Bo cornered him in their room at the end of the night demanding another look at that eye.

"Lukas," he warned, an echo of the way he'd called out for him earlier in the day. "Hold still now, I don't want to hurt you any worse." Funny how that instinct hadn't been there in the bright light of the afternoon when Jesse was plastering Luke's face with bear grease and toad's liver.

"It's fine, Bo." Really, why the guy had to go shoving him against the wall closest to the light, Luke would never know. It was bruised, maybe swollen, but it hurt a lot less than it had hours ago.

Must have been some kind of delayed reaction that had Bo's hand shaking as it touched his cheekbone just under the eye in question. Whatever the cause, it made Luke stop fighting him and just stand still. Bo's need to touch was clearly greater than Luke's desire to be left alone.

"See?" he asked; quiet voices seemed best for this kind of moment. "It ain't nothing that won't heal."

Bo nodded and dropped his still shaking hand to Luke's shoulder. Squeezed it a couple of times and didn't look into Luke's eyes.

"You hit your head or something?" Luke asked, but it wasn't a serious question. If Bo had gotten hurt anywhere along the way, Luke would already know about it. The boy didn't have a habit of keeping such things to himself.

"No," Bo admitted, letting him go and turning away.

Luke moved to follow him; bed was probably a good idea for them both. Suddenly found himself wondering whether his eye was worse off than he thought when he wound up bumping into Bo's shoulder.

"Wha—" he started to say, when it suddenly became clear that he had bumped into Bo's lips, too. Unaccountably, he heard Jesse's advice for running into a wild animal that is larger than you like one of those old-time recordings in his head: if you can't shoot 'em, play dead. Which was sort of what he did, just standing there and waiting for Bo to be done.

Silly old man advice; clearly Jesse had never come upon exactly this kind of wild animal before. Bo managed to get Luke's his back against the wall again in just one stumbling step. Arm around his shoulders and tongue in his mouth. Maybe Bo did hit his head after all; maybe he was sleep walking. Seemed to Luke that the professional advice was to humor someone in either condition, so he did. Stayed the course until Bo backed off, breathing hard. Maybe, Luke reasoned, it's delirium. Probably brought on by Loretta Lynn calling him cute. Luke had his own reasons – bear grease and toad's liver would scramble anyone's brains – so he got together two good breaths, then pulled Bo right back to him.


End file.
